Currently, it is common practice to enhance the flavor of food items, such as French fries, by applying a condiment to the exterior of the food items after the food items are cooked. This is done by dipping individual food items in a pool of condiment, such as ketchup, or by dispensing the condiment directly onto the exterior of the food items from a condiment package, or a dispenser such as the large pump-type ketchup and mustard dispensers found at many fast food restaurants.
There are many disadvantages associated with this prior art practice of applying condiments to food items. First, the practice can be messy. This is due to the fact that the condiment may drip off of the food items before, or as, the food items are eaten. In addition, individuals often make pools of condiment for their food items on flexible sandwich wrappers and other unstable surfaces. This can result in stains if the wrappers inadvertently come into contact with clothing, carpets, or other items.
A further disadvantage of current condiment application techniques is that it is difficult to use these techniques to apply a condiment to food items while driving. This is a common problem for individuals who order food items from a drive-through window, and then attempt to apply a condiment to the food items while driving. Using current techniques, the individual is presented with the food item (e.g., French fries, onion rings, hash browns, French toast sticks, or a soft pretzel) and several individual packets of condiment (e.g., ketchup or syrup) at a drive-through window. The user then opens the individual condiment packets, pours the contents of the packets onto a napkin or sandwich wrapper to form a condiment pool, dips the food items individually into the condiment pool, and eats the food items. This can be stressful, messy, and distracting to the driver.
A further disadvantage to current condiment application practice is that it is wasteful. As will be understood by regular consumers of fast food, it is difficult to squeeze all of the condiment out of a prior art condiment packet without touching the torn opening of the packet, which is often smeared with condiment. Accordingly, in an effort to avoid touching the torn opening of the condiment packet, the user often only empties part of the packet when forming a pool of condiment (e.g., on a sandwich wrapper). In addition, customers rarely consume all of the condiment from any particular pool of condiment. This results in the waste of condiment as the wrappers or napkins used to support the condiment pool are discarded.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved condiment dispensing apparatus (and corresponding method) that is tidy, efficient, and easy to use.